Musing: books - Ursula Le Guin, a perfectly normal part of life?

[wilderthan]

I just finished reading The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin. A thing that strikes me about her writing is a lack of judgement. She definitely has her opinions, but I didn't feel as if The Dispossessed told me to feel one way or the other about communism. In The Wave In The Mind, she even managed to talk about incest avoidance (in an essay about genetic determinism) without letting on in the slightest what she thinks about people who, well, don't avoid incest.

One thing that struck me though, in reading The Dispossessed, was that homosexuality was just an accepted part of the world. Homosexuality is mentioned, not for special interest or anything, but because it's a part of life. And homosexual characters are characters first, and their sexuality is a part of them like their hair and skin are a part of them, rather than a part of their characterisation as such.

I've come across the same kind of attitude from her before. There's just... no judgement about the things that people do. Her characters do sometimes judge, but she doesn't. I know that Sutty in The Telling has/had a female lover, and I think there might have been some prejudice against her, but all the same, it was clear to me that it wasn't Le Guin making the judgement.

I find that so refreshing. Where homosexuality isn't condemned, particularly in fandom and also in literature, it's usually the centerpiece or it's there to make a point. The fact that Le Guin has homosexual characters as a matter of course and that they're not treated as something special or different really makes me long for that to be a reality. I sort of imagine someone saying to her, "I'm gay," and her responding, "so? What's that got to do with anything?", with the picture I get from The Dispossessed.

Comments

[wilderthan.livejournal.com]

That sounds interesting. I haven't come across it happening much at all, really. There's usually either no mention of homosexuality, or they have some reason for mentioning it -- and then it's often demonised..

[calliopepurple.livejournal.com]

It's good near-future science fiction that just happens to have gay characters. Not like Mercedes Lackey's Herald-Mage trilogy, which was a gay character who just happened to be in an emotionally wrenching fantasy series.

[wilderthan.livejournal.com]

I might try it. :)